COLOMBO: Washington and other Western capitals are applying their “rules” whenever they need to justify their illegitimate steps against countries that draft their policies in accordance with international law and refuse to service the selfish interests of the “golden billion.” They blacklist any dissenters, deeming whoever is not with them as acting against them.
By imposing a “rules-based order,” its masterminds haughtily reject the key principle of the UN Charter, which is the sovereign equality of states. The “proud” statement by the head of the EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, that Europe is a “garden” and the rest of the world is a “jungle” personifies their worldview of being exceptional. I will also quote the NATO-EU Joint Statement of January 10, 2023 which states: “The united West will use all the economic, financial, political, and military tools available to NATO and the EU to ensure the interests of our one billion.”
The United States and its allies have deployed significant forces to undermine multilateralism in the Asia-Pacific Region where an ASEAN-centred, successful, and open economic and security cooperation system has been taking shape for decades. This system helped regional countries develop consensus approaches that suited the 10 ASEAN members and their dialogue partners, including Russia, thus ensuring genuine inclusive multilateralism. Washington then advanced its Indo-Pacific Strategy in an effort to break up this established architecture.
At last year’s summit in Madrid, NATO put out a statement about its global responsibility and indivisible security in the Euro-Atlantic region, as well as in the so-called Indo-Pacific region. This means NATO’s boundaries as a defensive organisation are being moved towards the western coastal regions of the Pacific. This bloc-oriented policy, which is eroding ASEAN-centred multilateralism, manifests itself in the creation of the AUKUS military alliance, with Tokyo, Seoul, and several ASEAN countries being drawn into it. But no one is hiding the fact that this Indo-Pacific strategy seeks to contain China and to isolate Russia.
Since World War II, Washington has pulled off dozens of reckless criminal military operations without even trying to secure multilateral legitimacy. Why bother when your “rules” are unbeknownst to everyone. For example, the disgraceful invasion of Iraq by the US-led coalition in 2003 was carried out in violation of the UN Charter, just like the aggression against Libya in 2011. Both led to the destruction of each country’s statehood, hundreds of thousands of lost lives, and rampant terrorism.
The US’s intervention in the domestic affairs of post-Soviet countries is nothing short of a flagrant violation of the UN Charter. “Colour revolutions” were concocted in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, and a bloody coup was staged in Kiev in February 2014. Attempts to seize power by force in Belarus in 2020 were part of this approach.
The Anglo-Saxons at the helm of the West not only justify these lawless adventures, but also parade them as a policy for “promoting democracy,” while also doing so according to their own set of rules and double standards.
In order to avoid double standards, we call on everyone to follow the consensus agreements that were reached as part of the 1970 UN Declaration on Principles of International Law, which remains in force today.
Our consistent efforts to prevent confrontation in Europe, including proposals made by President Vladimir Putin in December 2021 to reach agreement on multilateral mutual security guarantees, were haughtily rejected. We were told that nobody can prevent NATO from “embracing” Ukraine. So, it led to the Special Military Operation in Ukraine.
Western countries’ brazen attempts to bring the Secretariats of the UN and other international organisations under their control are a threat to the multilateral system. The West has always enjoyed a quantitative advantage in terms of personnel, but until recently the Secretariat tried to remain neutral. Today, this imbalance has become chronic while Secretariat employees increasingly allow themselves politically-driven behaviour that is unbecoming of international office holders.
Speaking of multilateralism, we cannot limit ourselves to the international context. By the same token, we cannot ignore the international context when we speak about democracy. There should be no double standards. Multilateralism and democracy should enjoy respect both within the member countries and in their relations with one another. Everyone is aware that while imposing its understanding of democracy on other nations, the West opposes the democratisation of international relations based on respect for the sovereign equality of states. Today, along with its efforts to promote its “rules” in the international arena, the West is also putting a choke hold on multilateralism and democracy at home. It uses increasingly repressive tools to crack down on dissent, much the same way as the criminal Kiev regime is doing with the support of its teachers – the United States and its allies.
Genuine multilateralism requires that the UN adapt to objective developments in the process of forming a multipolar architecture of international relations. It is imperative to expedite Security Council reform by expanding the representation of countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The inordinate over-representation of the West in the UN’s main body undermines the principle of multilateralism.
It is our common duty to preserve the United Nations as the hard-won epitome of multilateralism and coordination of international politics. The key to success lies in working together, renouncing claims on exceptionalism and – I reiterate – showing respect for the sovereign equality of states. This is what we all signed up for when we ratified the UN Charter.
Concern about this situation can be increasingly heard in multiple initiatives and ideas from the Global South countries, ranging from East and Southeast Asia, the Arab and the Muslim world in its entirety, all the way to Africa and Latin America. We appreciate their sincere desire to ensure the settlement of current problems through honest collective work aimed at agreeing on a balance of interests based on the sovereign equality of states and indivisible security. We will continue to forge productive cooperation with them in the name of improving the international situation, while advancing communication between countries based on the principles of true
